On Every Street (The Artists Trilogy, #0.5) by Karina Halle

When young con artist
Ellie Watt decides to call herself Eden White and go after the drug lord who ruined her as a child, she never expects to fall for one of his
henchmen. But Javier Bernal is no ordinary man. Subtly dangerousand
overwhelmingly seductive, Eden finds herself passionately in love with
Javier, the very person she's set-up tobetray. With her body and heart
in a heatedbattle against her deep need for revenge, no one will walk
away from this con a winner.

This 50K word (100+ pages) novella
takes place six years before Sins & Needles. It can be read before
or after Sins & Needles and may also be read as a standalone.***MY REVIEW***

He lied. I lied. Any love that starts out under a lie is bound to kill you. I just didn’t want to die on my feet.

"...there was no room for error in a con..."

She was just a naive and inexperienced child, an innocent, manipulated in the grown-up game by the people who were the closest to her, by people who supposed to protect he, but then he came and ruined her for good.

“I want to hurt the man who hurt me. I want to destroy him for destroying me. And I won’t be happy, I won’t be free, until I do so.”

"I wanted an eye for eye, his scars for mine."

"Vengeance was a terrible prison."

He hurt her, scarred her for life, forced the innocent child to grow up in the person she never wanted to be, but there*s one thing he didn*t count on: that that same child will grow up one day in a deeply broken, but determined woman, a fighter, with only one goal in her mind: r e v e n g e. All her life she was preparing herself for this moment, waiting for this moment, nothing was more important. She thought she was ready, she thought she had it all planned out, after all she was one of the best out there taught by nonetheless the best of the best- her very own parents, never in her life would she have thought that instead of the hunter, she*ll actually end up being the prey, but then again, up to that point she never met someone like Javier.

"I’d been watching the man for almost a month now, the exotic man with the peridot-colored eyes. From a distance they’d always sparkled like the gemstones, but now that I was in the same room with him, I could see they had an amber tinge to them, rendering them almost reptilian. That should have been my first warning..."

"I felt like I was at the zoo, the glass between me and the beast suddenly removed."

W...O...W...*O*...these words would pretty much sum up my reaction after I read this book. I must say that as much as I loved the first book in the series- My Review Of Sins and Needless (The Artists Trilogy, #1), I wasn*t that much excited about this prequel as I*m for the 2nd book, mostly because I knew it would be about Ellie and Javier and their past, without (my) sexy nerd Camden and no matter how much Javier intrigued me as a character, I never thought I could love this book as the 1st one, but boy was I wrong. This book is a story about young Ellie Watt becoming Eden White, about the biggest con of her life. While reading Sins & Needles #1 and meeting Javier for the first time, I asked myself a lot how could a girl like Ellie fall for a guy like Javier, a criminal, the right hand of the drug lord Travis who messed her up. I mean, being a con artist herself, she wasn*t all "goodie-goodie" and I definitely get the bad-boy-effect- I*m a girl after all, but still- for G*s sake, he is the Bff of the guy who ruined you, who marked you for life, but then I started reading this book and all my questions were answered.

"He brushed his shaggy dark hair behind his ears, his palm grazing his cheekbones, and I had the chance to look away. To not get caught gawking at him. To save myself. But I couldn’t help it. I was naïve and young and caught in the spark that would create the flames."

I thought that I could never fall for him, especially after Camden...oh Camden *Q*...and I really even didn*t at beginning of the story. The way they met, the way he behaved and the creepy Christian-Grey lines he threw at her didn*t swept me away (at least not right away:), they actually made me think: um...hello girl, psycho-stalker alert!!!Runnnn!, but then Ellie found herself in a big trouble and guess who comes to the rescue- the psy...*ahem* Javier :). Since that moment I started to see him in a different way and especially later on when he starts to open up to Ellie Eden. Um, sorry Camden *puppy dog eyes.* Because, even though that there*s a part of him that*s totally dark and scary, there*s also a more vulnerable side of him that he only shows to Ellie which makes her question everything she thought she knew.

“Eden,” he whispered, squeezing my hand. I looked up at him. He looked so serious, his dark brows knitted together. “You’ve gotten under my skin,” he said. I wasn’t expecting that. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shed you.”

But don*t be fooled, Javier is far from a hero, he is the guy your mother warned you about, he*s bad news all the way, he did things which can*t be redeemed, but I would say, just like Ellie, he wasn*t born that way, instead life and unfortunate set of circumstances made him this way, the only difference is that he is so corrupted that he just doesn*t care about redemption anymore. Therefore Ellie seizes this opportunity and creates Eden White- a pretty, naive and innocent Barbie doll who will bring this bad boy on his knees bringing her one step closer to her revenge. The only problem is that, while excelling as con artist, Ellie has no experience when it comes to seduction, so instead of seducing, she ends up being the one getting seduced.

"I’m scared of him. I’m disgusted by the vile monster he becomes, this beast he lets out. But I still love him. I’d still do anything for him. I can’t just turn off my heart. I want to, I do, but I can’t. I love him with everything I have and I hate myself for it. Because it’s wrong to love

him, I know. It’s so wrong.”

"No matter what I told myself, I was at his mercy. I had no idea what to expect and he did. He was controlling the strings."

"You’ve stained me, Javier. I’m yours to the core.”

Will Ellie be strong enough to resist the charms of the hot Mexican gangsta and finally get her revenge or will she lose herself in the con of her life?

Read this A M A Z I N G L Y beautiful, dark, emotional and way-too-hot read and find out!!! I*m totally in love in this fucked-up world of con artists the author created and her beautiful writing style- my hand was hurting after so much highlighting as you can see by the amount of the quotes I put in this review. I*m even tempted to say that it was even better than the first one when it comes to the plot- if that*s even possible, but no matter of my love for the bad boys I*m still TEAM CAMDEN all the way and I can*t wait for May 13th 2013 when I*ll see my nerd again!Karina Halle- r e s p e c t!

“You’re conning over emotion, over a feeling. Con for money, it’s tangible. When you con for revenge, you might not know when you’ve won.”

MY RATING:

Here are the lyrics and the link to the video of the song Javier devoted to Eden Ellie and the picture of his her famous car:

There's gotta be a record of you some place You gotta be on somebody's books The lowdown - a picture of your face Your injured looks The sacred and profane The pleasure and the pain Somewhere your fingerprints remain concrete And it's your face I'm looking for on every stree

A ladykiller - regulation tattoo Silver spurs on his heels Says - what can I tell you as I'm standing next to you She threw herself under my wheels Oh it's a dangerous road And a hazardous load

And the fireworks over liberty expode in the heat And it's your face I'm looking for on every street A three-chord symphony crashes into space The moon is hanging upside down I don't know why it is I'm still on the case

It's a ravenous town And you still refuse to be traced Seems to me such a waste And every victory has a taste that's bittersweet And it's your face I'm looking for on every street